Parliament approves C41,840m for the Ministry of Fisheries

sheries development policy, Parliament on Friday approved the sum of 41,840 million cedis as its budgetary allocation for the 2006 fiscal ..

This was contained in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, which was presented to the House by its Chairman, Dr Matthew Antwi.

He said the Ministry would engage in various projects in 2006 such as the construction of cold storage and fish processing facilities at strategic points along the cost and initiate studies for the improvement of selected fish landing sites.

"The coastal areas to be covered are Axim, Munford, Elmina, James Town, whilst two land sites at Dzemeni and Abotoase (on the shores of the Volta Lake) will also be covered by the studies."

The Ministry would also continue to implement alternative livelihood schemes in fishing communities to impart vocations and skills to ensure that during the lean seasons there would be economic activities to sustain them.

The Committee recommended that the Ministry should expedite action on the recruitment of personnel to ensure effective performance in the ensuing year.

Earlier, the House adopted the Report of the Finance Committee on the loan agreement between Ghana and the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group for an amount of 45 million dollars in support of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Project. It also adopted the loan agreement between Ghana and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for 18,964,000 dollars for the financing of the Root and Tuber Improvement and Marketing Programme (RTIMP) 9 Dec. 05